The nightly performance focuses on an old piano as it succumbs to the elements; it'll be removed this week.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

The nightly performance focuses on an old piano as it succumbs to...

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Pianist Mauro Ffortissimo has been playing the same pieces for a crowd on recent evenings at sunset on the bluffs above the ocean in Half Moon Bay.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Pianist Mauro Ffortissimo has been playing the same pieces for a...

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Pianist Mauro Ffortissimo has been playing the same pieces for a crowd on recent evenings at sunset on the bluffs above the ocean in Half Moon Bay.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Pianist Mauro Ffortissimo has been playing the same pieces for a...

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A crowd gathers to listen to pianist Mauro Ffortissimo and his accompanists during a piece of nightly performance art at sunset at Half Moon Bay.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

A crowd gathers to listen to pianist Mauro Ffortissimo and his...

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Mauro Ffortissimo's sheet music on his piano on February 8th, 2013 in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Mauro Ffortissimo is a pianist and artist. He hauled a piano out onto the cliffs off Kelly Ave. Ffortissimo is doing a performance art project about playing the piano every night at sunset until the parks officials tell him he has to put it away.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Mauro Ffortissimo's sheet music on his piano on February 8th, 2013...

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Mauro Ffortissimo plays music with two friends Garry Bassermann and Alexander Meyer on February 8th, 2013 in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Mauro Ffortissimo is a pianist and artist. He hauled a piano out onto the cliffs off Kelly Ave. Ffortissimo is doing a performance art project about playing the piano every night at sunset until the parks officials tell him he has to put it away.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Mauro Ffortissimo plays music with two friends Garry Bassermann and...

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Mauro Ffortissimo's friend Alexander Meyer plays the bass on February 8th, 2013 in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Mauro Ffortissimo is a pianist and artist. He hauled a piano out onto the cliffs off Kelly Ave. Ffortissimo is doing a performance art project about playing the piano every night at sunset until the parks officials tell him he has to put it away.

Photo: Jessica Olthof, The Chronicle

Mauro Ffortissimo's friend Alexander Meyer plays the bass on...

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"Nature's changing the piano. Everything's in flux," Ffortissimo says as the piano decomposes.

It was a dark and foggy night, and Mauro Ffortissimo, a pianist and sculptor, gathered four burly men and rolled a baby grand piano on its side, like a lopsided wheel, out onto the bluffs overlooking Half Moon Bay.

Every evening at sunset since then, he has played a few pieces by Schumann, Debussy and Chopin, but during the rest of the day the piano sits, waiting for curious passers-by to plink away at its worn keys.

City officials caught on a few days after the piano's Feb. 1 debut and told Ffortissimo he must remove it because he doesn't have the proper permits, but for the sake of art they're turning a blind eye until Thursday.

"I put something up so it looked like I had a permit, but I didn't," said Ffortissimo, 50, whose real last name is Dinucci but who uses a stage name for his art projects. The code enforcer "was super nice about it. I asked him, 'What if I want to go and get a permit?' He said it would take me a year."

Instead, the piano will squat on its grassy patch for four more days, despite locals who wish it could stay permanently. Dozens came to see the sunset show Friday, armed with wine, blankets and camera phones.

"This is the coolest thing," said Arlene Haskins, 60, who snuggled in a lawn chair alongside two neighbors from Half Moon Bay. "People come out here during the day, walking their dogs, and they haven't played in years, and they get to sit down and play by the ocean. And right now, we've got wine, music, a view - this is the best restaurant in town."

Special connection

Most people crowded close during the half-hour performance as Ffortissimo played, accompanied on this particular night by two local musicians who played along on melodica and upright bass. Others milled around farther away and watched the sun drop into the ocean.

And Elida Oettel cried a little as she watched. She had grown up with the old piano, which her mother had bought used when Oettel was a year old. Oettel, now 50, never learned to play well, but her mother turned to it for comfort, and the instrument followed the family as they moved to Southern California, Panama City, San Rafael and, finally, Half Moon Bay, where Oettel's own children learned to play on it. She'd spent hours trying to clean its scratched sides.

"We used to play hide-and-go-seek under it," she said. "We would put Christmas decorations on it, have family jam sessions around it, the whole neighborhood would come over. It has a lot of memories."

Sometimes the piano was too noisy, she said, especially when her kids would bang on the keys. Out on the bluffs, the notes were hard to hear over the sound of the waves, the crowd's chatter and the occasional bark of a dog.

Oettel had to leave the piano when recent financial troubles forced her to move. The home's new owners hired a tuner, but the piano's aging metal strings were too rusty to be cranked back into shape. The owners, knowing Ffortissimo's art included taking apart pianos to make musical sculptures, donated it to him late last month.

"I already had maybe 30 or 40 pianos in my warehouse, so I didn't need new parts," Ffortissimo said. "Out there, the piano puts a smile on a lot of people. That's what I was trying to say with it. It's kind of dead, but it's also alive."

Perfect timing

So he hatched a plan, but it had to wait until the right moment.

"That Friday, it happened to be very foggy here," Ffortissimo said. "Around 6:30, this fog rolls in. The state park rangers are a block away, but you couldn't see their office. 'Man,' I thought, 'now is the time.' "

He and four others unscrewed the legs and pedal stand from the piano and put the baby grand into a truck, which he drove from his studio on Kelly Avenue to the end of the road. They hoisted the piano onto a dolly and rolled it down a windy but paved bike path, then along 50 feet of grass to the edge of the cliff.

"We had to move it like cartwheeling on its side six times," he said. "It was the only way. You cannot lift that. When it got to the corner of the keyboard, I told the guys, 'If it goes, just jump out of the way.' We couldn't see anything. It was a nightmare. But nobody got hurt."

The idea of "Sunset Piano" is to witness the same pieces being played day after day as the piano slowly falls victim to the elements.

"The piano's getting progressively out of tune, out of whack, out of everything," Ffortissimo said. "I'm doing the same thing, but nature's changing the piano. Everything's in flux."

Plus, he said, "I've basically always wanted to play piano in front of the ocean."

Bittersweet farewell

When the piano's grace period expires, Ffortissimo and his helpers will cart it away. The Half Moon Bay Yacht Club has offered to take it out on a boat for one last waterfront spin, he said, but once that's over he'll take the piano out to a field on his property and burn it as the end of its art performance. Some neighbors have tried to organize to stop it, but he said that part of the piece's charm is that it's temporary.

Oettel said that the piano's grand final two weeks, surrounded by admirers, has made it easier to say goodbye, but that the experience is bittersweet.

"It feels sad, in a way," she said. "While it was in our home, it was great. But maybe it got rusted because it wasn't taken care of. This, though, is a wonderful idea. If only we all got this much attention when we die."